


A Tangled String of Blood and Entropy

by Viridian5



Series: Tangled String [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Action/Adventure, Clones, Drama, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-02-15
Updated: 1998-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder finds out that he's one of many clones just in time for the Project's attempt to exterminate them all.  XF/almost-everything-a-certain-actor-has-ever-done-but-especially-<i>Kalifornia</i> crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tangled String of Blood and Entropy

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for just about everything from "Quagmire" through "Kitsunegari."
> 
> Brian, Carrie, Adele, and Early Grayce courtesy of Dominic Sena. All things Twin Peaks ("Dennis/Denise") belong to David Lynch, Lynch/Frost Productions, and Spelling Entertainment. Jake Fleiss by Zalman King. Eugene Sands ("the junkie surgeon") from Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios. Pinky and the Brain are property of Warner Brothers and Steven Spielberg (for those interested, the quote used here comes from "Brainania"). All things _Strange Luck_ belong to Karl Schaefer. No infringement intended to anyone.
> 
> "In illusion comfort lies" is from "Alice" by the Sisters of Mercy.
> 
> Nicole Desjardin/Dark Angel/Alice/Serafine Fitzwalter is all mine.
> 
> Thanks to Small Woodinat Creature for proofreading, fact-checking, and getting me into this mess, my first fanfic story.

_"I'm connected to the people ahead of me  
By a tangled string of blood and entropy...."_  
  -- "Ancestor Cult" by Machines of Loving Grace  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone looking at Brian and Nicole amidst the crowd at the Continental terminal at LAX wouldn't find anything out of the ordinary; just two young lovers intertwined in their good-byes, whispering their intimate feelings to one another. That was exactly the effect they'd intended. Anyone who actually heard the "sweet nothings" they whispered would know better.

"I disassembled the Glock and distributed the pieces through your two bags. No one should notice," Nicole said into his ear.

"The nine-ouncer made from `space-age polymers and aircraft aluminum'? What about bullets?" Brian answered.

"I gave you regular and silver `big dog' bullets."

"But that Glock is one of your favorite guns."

"I know you don't like to go unarmed, and given the last week and the person you're going to see, I felt it was necessary."

Her concern, which she showed so few people, made him feel protected despite all the recent events. He loved to see her like this, crackling with pent-up energy, On, watching out and almost hoping for trouble. As deadly and elegant as a tiger and as inviting to the touch, even though you knew you would lose a hand or your life for the privilege, not caring because it would be worth it. In his more lucid moments, he knew that this energy had attracted him to Early as well. He warmed himself at her fire.

Brian was glad that Carrie wasn't still with him, not only for the danger she would be sharing with him but also because his enjoyment of his current danger and what she would see as his gun fetish would disturb her. His left hand unconsciously moved to touch the scar on his face. The Brian she had loved had died long before she'd left the Brian who remained.

"Earth to Brian. You look tired. Maybe you should try to get some sleep on the plane."

"I already have to risk people remembering me for the scar. If I get one of my nightmares and start screaming and writhing, I might as well ask all my fellow passengers to keep me in mind if some G-men come to ask them questions."

It bothered her that the attempts on his life had reactivated his old nightmares and insomnia but she said nothing of it, knowing he didn't want her to make a big deal of it. They'd only known one another a week, but she already knew him so well. "You remember where the meeting will take place and everything you have to tell him?"

"Of course. I have an eidetic memory, just like you do, and I'll take good care of your laptop and disks. But you don't seem to trust this Mulder guy. I mean, you don't want me to let him take me to his apartment. Why are you sending me to him, then?"

She smiled. "I like him but I don't trust anyone. It's just that he's not a professional and not paranoid enough. As for his apartment, it's been broken into, tampered with, and bugged so many times that he should leave the door unlocked and charge admission. He should know what's going on because he might be a target, and since the rest of you are already in danger, he can't threaten your lives by righteously trumpeting his knowledge to all the wrong people." Her smile deepened and took a mischievous edge. "Besides, this may be just the shock to the shammies he needs to get his ass in order."

"It's still a shock to me."

"You're taking it well."

"It makes sense of things that didn't make sense before, and I know the boogie man exists. How long do I stay with Mulder?"

"I'll keep in touch or one of the other folks I have protecting the others will contact you." She looked away suddenly, her gaze alighting on two suited men walking towards the terminal. "I'm going to have to take a new identity again after I get you and yours looked after. I think you might like Serafine."

"'Serafine'? `Burning fire'?"

"Serafine it is, then." She started to pull away from him and said, for the benefit of anyone listening around them, "Be safe, my marshmallow bunny," in a disgustingly lovesick tone.

Brian smirked. "I will, my spongy circus peanut."

Her serious professional face broke. Her eyes, like his, could be green, hazel, or a dark almost-black depending on her mood. Right now, they were dark and indignant. "'Circus peanut' is bad enough, but 'spongy'?"

"As a writer, I know the value of a well-placed word."

She grinned, gave him a kiss that almost stopped his heart, then went off to stalk her prey and cover his escape, her long braid slapping her back as her stride lengthened into attack mode. He made himself an anonymous part of the crowd and walked toward the metal detector, as intent on his target. Brian could only hope that Mulder was as open to "extreme possibilities" as he claimed to be.

******************************************************

Mulder enjoyed the warm weather as he walked to his appointment and tried to anticipate the person and surprise Dark Angel had sent his way. He'd gotten an e-mail with a random, incorrect e-mail address, the usual paper ball logo, and a coded message: "I met up with someone you could go one-on-one with. I guarantee you'll be surprised. 6, 1013." Mulder translated it as meaning that she expected him to go to the usual basketball court meeting place to meet someone Saturday, today, at 10:13 a.m. She wouldn't be there herself. That comment about being surprised probably meant exactly what it said.

Although he'd corresponded with her via e-mail and her website many times, he'd only met Dark Angel twice. First, as a brunette, she had provided coffee and sympathy over his experience with the Paper Hearts case. It turned out that Cancer Man occasionally lent her to the ISU when he didn't need her for black ops assignments, although Mulder hadn't known that at the time. Prior to that night, she'd avoided Mulder, as the man she called Mr. Morley commanded. After that night, the ISU never saw her again. Second, as a blonde, she had helped him on a case involving the vampire role-playing community in New York City. Thanks to her and his own work in apprehending the killer, he still had an open invitation to show up in character to their gatherings. He hadn't found the guts to do it yet, not without Bette Noire, Angel's insane vampire identity, and her master, Micheleine, the demon teddy bear backpack, at his side.

Dark Angel kept trying to get him to become an independent contractor, as she was. As she put it, one of the good things about being self-employed is that your boss usually isn't out to kill you.

He was sorry she wouldn't be coming. Aside from the fact that she never gave him the my-God-you're-insane look he so often got from others, including Scully, she was also more paranoid than he was, and he loved her for it.

He saw a tall man on the usual court engaged in what Mulder thought of as Zen hoop shooting. He stood, aimed, and shot slowly in a meditative fashion. Every shot went in.

Just before Mulder was a foot away, the man turned to face him. Mulder's hand went for his gun as the panicked thought, "alien bounty hunter," whipped through his head. He checked the motion as he wondered why the alien would reproduce him imperfectly, with the shorter hair and that facial scar, or why the alien would regard him with a stunned expression similar to his own. Or why it would be playing basketball.

His twin recovered first, although a look of pain flashed briefly in his eyes. "I thought I was prepared... Okay, I'm stepping back now and reaching for a pin. I'm going to show you that I don't bleed green, toxic goo." He pricked his finger with a safety pin, drawing a perfect, red bead of blood. He started to laugh. "I'm a clone, not an alien. Now there's a statement I never thought would drop from my lips. I'm Brian."

"Do you have a last name?" Mulder asked, proud of the steadiness of his voice. The man had his voice, with his tones...

"After the week I've just had, I'm not handing that out. I'm one of many, and we're all being put on the chopping block. Nicole stumbled on the plot and saved my life. She has other people looking after the rest of us. She thought you should know."

"That's big of her."

"She said I should give you a code phrase." Brian's voice went to a higher pitch and took on a demented Cockney accent as he said, "Look, Brain, I made a round bird!"

Mulder cracked up. "This is what I would be doing if I didn't join the FBI?" It amazed him to see the same face he saw in the mirror every morning showing emotions he didn't currently feel. He recognized nine out of ten of Brian's expressions as his own. He didn't know yet whether the familiar or unfamiliar expressions bothered him more. If not for the facial scar, he might be gibbering by now.

"Hey, I've been working on my Pinky impression ever since my first attempt made Nicole spurt cherry cola out her nose. I even understood her explanation of her fascination with that phrase."

"I never got it."

"And you're the FBI's golden boy? I'm disappointed. She said that no one who ever saw a real bird would think an origami bird looks like a bird, that it actually looks only slightly more like a bird than a round paper ball does. It's just that the human mind tries to impose familiar shapes on everything it sees whether it's warranted or not and makes the paper look more like a bird. That's why she calls most of your cases `round birds' with some of the more obscure ones being `rounder than most.'" He smiled. "I have the cast of characters she compiled on the laptop with me. Do you have a place, besides your apartment, we could go to where I could show you them?"

"I'm refusing to be offended, and, yes, I do know where I could take you."

******************************************************

Mulder supposed that the Lone Gunmen were taking Brian's existence rather well. Mentioning Dark Angel helped and opening up her laptop helped even more. He hadn't known that they were familiar with her. He supposed that meeting Brian had already numbed him because he didn't freak out half as much as he should have when the pictures and statistics of all the others, ten of them, pulled up on the monitor.

"We all have the same blood type and height-wise are within two inches of one another. I suppose you noticed that the medical records are attached to these. It looks like constant head injuries are genetic for us," Brian said.

"These are driver's licenses. How did Angel track them all down?" Byers asked with something that sounded a bit like outrage and a bit like horror.

"She pulled all the information off a government database by entering Mulder's picture on search. You know how they use a camera that ties directly into a computer to make licenses now? Well, it turns out that the picture and license information is sent directly to this database. I had a fit when I found out," Brian said, his eyes glued to the screen and its column of similar faces with different haircuts and shirts. Mulder realized that Brian had scars circling his wrists and wondered how he got them.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Dark Angel is one of the great ones," Frohike said.

"Amen," Langly said. "Who is she right now? She was Nicole the last time I saw her."

"She's still Nicole," Brian answered.

Frohike smirked. "Ah, the Ice Queen."

"I don't know who you're talking about. She has a nasty sense of humor and an inner fire--" Brian cut off suddenly.

Frohike took on a wise expression. "She must really like you to cross personae."

"What?"

"She creates a personality to go with each identity. Nicole Desjardin is a cold, professional loner. Stern, but with a heart of gold. You saw Angel herself. Consider yourself flattered."

"There's nothing wrong with being professional," Brian muttered.

While the Lone Gunmen shared smiles and Brian defended himself, Mulder went through the names and found Brian's full name. Brian Kessler. The name was familiar, and Mulder quickly pulled it from memory. The knowledge felt like a lead weight.

Brian seemed to feel him make the connection and turned to face him with a bleak look on his face. Looking into eyes so like his own, Mulder suddenly knew that this man had demons who could give his own a run for their money.

"You read the damned book," Brian said, his voice dull. "Of course you did. You've done profiler work."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'm tired of talking about it and tired of people listening for the wrong reasons. Listening with a thin cover of sympathy and horror over their bloodlust. They wanted to know what it felt like to shoot a man to death. They were impressed I did it with a concussion and my hands cuffed together. I know them because I was just like them at one point, listening avidly to stories about killers and their methods without caring about the people hurt. That Brian deserved to die; I only wish he hadn't taken so many people with him." Brian turned away. "Because I knew you would get that look on your face. I don't deserve your sympathy."

Byers spoke for all the Lone Gunmen when he asked, "This person you killed deserved to die, right? It was self-defense."

Brian's twisted smile stabbed Mulder's heart. "Well, he killed and terrorized a lot of people, raped my girlfriend, and tried to kill me. Is that enough? He felt he was giving me my last lesson, doing me a favor, being a good friend. He smiled as I... I was the one who'd trusted and befriended him. Any other questions?" He closed the laptop and packed it away, then walked out.

"It looks like the moodiness is genetic," Mulder said with false cheer and followed at great speed.

Byers, Frohike, and Langly sat and stared for a moment, then Frohike said, "I had a normal, boring life once."

******************************************************

"Brian! Brian, wait!" Mulder caught up with him and grabbed him by the shoulder.

Brian whipped around with a small gun in his shaking hands. He had it pointed at Mulder's stomach, and all Mulder could think was that he had no idea where his twin had been carrying it.

"I thought I could deal with this, Mulder, I told her I could, but I was wrong." He looked tired. In truth, he had looked tired from the very first but Mulder hadn't seen it.

"Brian, you're freaked out. It's completely understandable--"

"Do you know what it's like looking at your face and seeing myself before my life went to hell?"

"I understand guilt--"

"I know. You read my book, but I read your dossier. Do you know that your enemies have enough information on you to fill a book? They have chapters speculating on your mental state, pages dealing with your day-to-day existence from what you eat for breakfast to what you wear when you try to go to sleep on your couch. Angel has a copy and breaks into their computers for the occasional update." He started to laugh. "We're even."

Mulder took the gun from Brian's loose grip and pulled him close. "It's okay. When was the last time you slept?"

Brian shuddered, and his whispering voice sounded raw and ragged. "It's been awhile. Between the people trying to kill me, and my problems coming back from the stress I'm feeling from having people trying to kill me... again... I'm sorry, I'm usually better than this."

"I have to find you a place to sleep, not my apartment, don't worry," he said, anticipating Brian's protest. "Though I probably should go there to see if anyone's waiting for me."

"All right." Brian straightened up and tried to wake himself up a bit more. "Give me the gun back so I can cover you."

"Where did you have it? You weren't wearing a shoulder holster."

"Ankle holster."

Mulder felt himself shiver. "And you're freaked out." He handed the gun back. "If you turn this on me again--"

Brian pulled away. "You'll what? Slay me with a witty, sarcastic remark? You're unarmed. You're a pathetic excuse for a paranoiac, Mulder." Brian put the gun into his waistband and closed his leather jacket. He ran his hand through his spiky hair and briefly touched the scar on the left side of his face. "Coming?"

In a flash of insight, Mulder realized that Angel had sent Brian not only as a messenger but also as a kind of protector, someone to watch his back. "Coming."

******************************************************

They reached Mulder's building at sunset. Mulder spotted Krycek in the car immediately and felt insulted. The car sat right in front of the building. Maybe Krycek hadn't intended to be hidden, had wanted to be seen so they could talk. It amazed Mulder that his thoughts scattered every time he saw his former partner, his betrayer, his father's killer. He couldn't think, just as the rat bastard intended.

"Stay here, Bri. I'm going to go talk to our friend in the car there."

"Is this wise?" Brian's eyes flitted everywhere, seeing everything. Mulder felt him like a coiled spring at his back, ready to move and attack.

"It'll be fine." He walked toward the car with greater confidence at the thought that someone covered him. He leaned into the open window and said, "Krycek. What do you want now?"

"I'm here to help you."

"I'm amazed you could say that with a straight face after Tunguska." He wanted to grab Krycek and smash him into oblivion, but he kept that urge and his emotions under control. Emotions hobbled you. He knew that if he grabbed Krycek he wouldn't be able to let go again. He needed to start thinking again.

"If you waited, you would have seen my plan to get us out. I lost an arm because of you, and I'm still here trying to do you a favor. I have information you'll want. The Project had you cloned, Mulder, for their own purposes. I know where all of the clones are. For a little reciprocation, I can give you their locations."

Mulder saw that one of the hands Krycek rested on the steering wheel was unquestionably plastic. Someone had sawed at and torn Krycek's arm off, as they'd intended to do to him. A feeling he couldn't identify swamped him, as he thought of the blank face Krycek used as he mentioned it and of the actual prosthetic. Guilt? Shame? Satisfaction? Grief? Was he actually feeling vaguely turned on by the thought of that artificial arm?

He fled from that train of thought and returned to one that satisfied him. It made him laugh. "Well, isn't it a shame I don't need you. Brian, get over here."

Brian looked pissed as he came over and leaned into the open passenger side window. He pressed his gun into the side of Krycek's neck. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"What are you talking about?" Mulder asked.

"This guy is one of the people who kept tabs on me. I gave them nicknames. I believe I called you `Ratboy.'"

Mulder started to laugh because it would be a show of weakness to start shaking uncontrollably. Meanwhile, Krycek protested, "How did you see us? We're professionals!"

"I've been paranoid ever since I took a little road trip a few years ago. For instance, I'm wondering if the people in that other car are with you or not."

"What other car?" Mulder asked.

"If I pointed it out to you, you would draw attention to us. I mean right now it looks like you're a hustler talking up a john who just called a friend over to make a kinkier deal."

"What!"

"You should see yourself with your head in the window and your ass hanging out. Of course, my ass is currently doing the same." If Brian's current dark expression meant the same thing for him as it did for Mulder, Brian was thinking, "once we get away from the car we're going to have a little talk."

"No deal, Krycek. I don't need you."

Krycek's smile made Mulder's insides go funny. "Your loss. Why do you have to make everything so difficult? Now if your macho, roughtrade twin could get the gun out of my neck, I'll be going." Brian pulled back out of the car. "Thank you. It's been fun." Mulder got his head out of the car just before Krycek sped away.

"I hate him!" Mulder snarled then muttered darkly to himself as he ran to catch up with Brian.

"You just keep telling yourself that, Mulder."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the psychologist, you work it out. Does your brain always go south when you see him?"

"Once again, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Did you think that I wanted you to reveal me to this guy? You just about told him everything you know. Why don't we just walk over to the other car and say hi? I'm too tired for this shit."

"I never realized I get so bitchy."

"Oh, good, everything _is_ about you." Brian slumped to sit down on a nearby stoop. "I had a normal, boring life once. A few years ago I thought grad school would kill me. Since you've decided that I'm just like you, I'd like to ask you whether you start to hallucinate when you're overtired."

"I'm not going to feel sorry for you." Mulder never realized he could be such a pain in the ass.

"Who's being bitchy now? Just direct me to the nearest hotel then."

"Brian, I think we should bring Scully in on this."

"Haven't we endangered enough people? I'm sorry," Brian said as he saw Mulder flinch.

"No, it's okay. I just realized that I'm not dealing with you objectively, while Scully is Ms. Objective. Besides, she would kill me if she found out about this eventually from someone else."

"Fine."

Mulder decided to take advantage of Brian's fatigued acceptance. "You'll call her. As me."

"Say what?"

"Humor me."

"Sure. Fine. Whatever. It's your funeral."

With Brian watching their backs for followers, Mulder found a pay phone and dialed Scully's number, then handed it over to Brian. "Scully, it's me," Brian said, and Mulder shivered again at the perfect choice of words and tone. "My apartment is being watched. Yeah, again. Could you drive over here? I have some sensitive information I'd like to share with you. As a doctor, you'll be interested. I'll be waiting at the park with someone I want you to meet. I know I have to get a life. Thanks. Bye." He hung up the phone. "She's on her way. Now what?"

"Now we wait."

"Yea, though I enter the valley of the shadows of clichés..."

"If you don't shut up, I won't let you sleep."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

******************************************************

As they waited on a park bench, Mulder tried to figure out the reasons for all this. Sure, he was charming and handsome, but he couldn't see why anyone would necessarily want ten more of him. Once he would have wondered why his father had gone along with it, but he had long since ceased to ask himself about his father's reasons for things involving the Project. How could you make sense of a man who not only stood back and let one of his children be abducted but also chose which one?

He hoped Angel had some definitive ideas as to why someone wanted them dead now. He only had a thousand bizarre possibilities.

Brian whimpered and started to thrash in his sleep next to him. Mulder shook him until his eyes opened and asked, "What is it?"

"I'm in the overturned pick up truck and I can't climb out with my hands cuffed and Carrie's in there with him and I can't even tell which direction is up and my vision is all wrong..."

"Brian," Mulder said as gently but firmly as he could, "you got out of the truck and got Carrie away from Early. Early will never hurt her or anyone else again. You did it."

"I'm sorry I got us into this, Brian," Brian said, and Mulder realized that, despite his eyes being open, Brian was still asleep and responding to what sounded like his own voice talking to him. "I was so stupid."

"I forgive you. You can forgive yourself. It's over now. Get some rest." Mulder rested Brian's head on his shoulder and stroked his spiky hair until the dreaming, inward-focused eyes closed again. Brian's breathing slowly evened out.

Mulder found himself slowly stroking Brian's facial scar and felt a bit ashamed of himself for taking liberties. He couldn't help himself though. In his book Brian had written that in a perfect world that fateful road trip wouldn't have happened at all, but that in the absence of that perfect world, he was glad to have that scar. Early Grayce had left an indelible imprint on Brian's soul. The scar, a corresponding fleshly mark, pronounced Brian's inner damage to everyone who saw him.

Mulder remembered a conversation with Scully about something similar when he had revealed to her his wish for an obvious disfigurement of his own to warn people off him. It had just slipped out in a burst of temporary insanity. Fortunately, she had somehow misinterpreted his confession as a joke. Fortunately for his pride, but the incident was a sad testament to the state of their partnership. While Dark Angel refused to even consider the idea of being in the same room with Scully, comparing such a meeting to matter meeting anti-matter, she said she would love to be there if he and Scully ever actually told one another everything instead of thinking at one another and hoping the message got through.

Mulder didn't think that would ever happen. He wouldn't initiate it because he knew he would say things that would leave his heart and soul open to attack. He wouldn't want Scully to start it because for now he could pretend that she only pulled away from him temporarily, that once she started to heal from her cancer scare she would warm to him again. If he asked her straight out, she might use her famous bluntness to tell him something he couldn't bear to hear. A phrase from one of Angel's favorite songs came to him: "In illusion comfort lies." He knew the truth could hurt, and sometimes even admitted to himself that he sought it in other areas out of some self-destructive urge toward punishment and martyrdom. For his sanity's sake, he accepted illusion in his relations with Scully.

He looked into Brian's now-peaceful face and saw other paths. He held a living reminder that his life might be no happier had he never started his search for the Truth. He accepted now that he had clones living out there somewhere, how could he not with such obvious evidence at his side? His acceptance opened his mind to thoughts of the others, of what they were like and how they lived. It was almost like having a family again. Mulder had always wanted a brother; now it seemed he had ten. Brothers, not copies.

Brian is not me, Mulder thought sternly to himself. He looks a lot like me, even down to the mole. He sounds a lot like me. But he isn't me.

A car pulled up nearby, and a brief piece of "Love Me Tender," as rendered by a car horn, sounded out. Mulder grinned and shook at his companion, "Our ride is here, Bri, wake up."

"Mmmm, don' wanna go to school today," Brian mumbled as he buried himself deeper into Mulder's shoulder. Still grinning, Mulder stood up then grabbed Brain as he started to fall. That moment of freefall had the proper effect. "I'm up, I'm up! You're a cruel bastard, do you know that, Mulder?" Brian ran his hands through his hair. "How long did I sleep?"

"Twenty-five minutes."

"So that's why I still feel like shit. Are you sure that's Scully in the car?"

"She gave me a musical cue. Let's go."

Mulder helped a still-groggy Brian into the back seat and sat with him to continue serving as a living pillow. Scully seemed a bit surprised at Mulder's refusal of the shotgun seat but said nothing.

"Mulder, it was a sad moment in my life when I got your call and request and didn't find any of it surprising. I found it even more depressing that I was home on a Saturday night to take your call."

"Scully, this is the person I wanted you to meet. He's too tired to be at his best," Mulder smirked when he heard a very distinct, "Screw you," being muttered against his shoulder, "but I'm sure you'll find him interesting anyway. Could you turn on the light a moment, Scully? This is Brian Kessler."

Dana Scully turned on the interior light and turned to look into the back seat. Her jaw dropped a little, but she showed no trace of recognition at the name. Mulder had once leant her Kessler's book, and it wasn't a work you would forget. She probably hadn't made the connection. The book contained photos of everyone involved in the road trip but the author. On first reading Mulder had thought that psychologically significant; now he knew why Kessler had no photos circulating through the public.

Scully shook her head. "Please tell me this is a case of a twin lost in some mistake at the hospital."

"I'm afraid not, Scully. Brian informs me that there are nine more people who look like me wandering the country."

"I'm more inclined to think they, and you, look like me," Brian said. "Pleased to meet you, Dana. Do I look like that much of a mess or are you just horrified that there are ten more Mulders running around?"

"That wasn't really my call you took earlier. You talked to Brian," Mulder said.

"Only because he thought it would be funny. Your partner must be some fun at parties."

Scully sighed, turned off the light, and started to drive. "So what's the situation and what do you want me to do about it?"

"The situation is that Brian and the other clones have been marked for death. A friend of mine is keeping the others protected, but it's my job to keep her messenger safe. He also needs a place to sleep, especially since he's out on his feet. My apartment is being watched again. I came to you for a ride to someplace far from here and some advice."

"You came to me for advice on which out of town motel you should use? I think I'm insulted."

"No. I want to ask you if you see anything I don't or have any suggestions for what I should do." Mulder's voice softened. "I'm taking all this very personally, and just looking at Brian is freaking me out--"

"Thanks," Brian muttered.

"So I'm coming to you. I don't want to do anything stupid."

"You made a wise choice, Mulder," Scully said with the words "for once" remaining unspoken. "Tell me everything you know about what's going on." Mulder shared all of his knowledge of the situation and the day's events with Brian's sleepy voice occasionally interrupting with something he'd missed. It took a long time. After a while Scully said, "I think this Angel person just wants you to keep your and Brian's heads down. She seems to be looking into it and protecting the others." Scully still couldn't say the word "clones." "I think she wants you to lie low, and I think you should."

Mulder wondered how hard Angel would laugh when he told her that Scully had agreed with her on something. He had never gotten Angel to spurt anything out her nose in laughter at something he'd said, but then he'd never done an impression of Pinky, the more demented of the two lab mice, for fear that she already saw him as Pinky and Scully as Brain. It sounded crazy, but her mind made associative leaps he'd never seen in anyone aside from himself.

Brian snuggled in closer, probably no longer conscious of who it was he burrowed against, seemingly out cold, so Mulder said, "Scully, you should know the name `Brian Kessler.' He wrote a large number of mysteries and thrillers, but you should know him for a non-fiction book, his first published book, his publisher would call _The Road to Hell: A Ride with a Spree Killer_."

Mulder saw her face twist in his view of the rear view mirror. "I remember that book. I wish I didn't. This is the author? I guess that explains why there aren't any author photos of him."

"What I mean to say is that he has problems. A guilt complex, nightmares, insomnia, extreme paranoia, mood swings... I'm worried for him."

"My, how different he is from you."

"I'm not being flippant, Scully. You didn't see him in the grip of a nightmare like I did. He thought he was fighting to get out of a wrecked pickup truck while handcuffed with thoughts of his girlfriend being raped and tortured by a man he'd trusted and introduced her to running through his concussed head. I don't know how long he'll be here, but I can't leave him by himself, not with his problems and with all the people hunting him. I may not be coming in Monday or even Tuesday."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"I need someone to tell Skinner what's going on. I won't be able to call, not with what's going on."

"Mulder, I'm staying with the both of you."

"What?"

"Mulder, it's like Brian said earlier on the phone." Mulder could almost hear her smile. "As a doctor and a scientist, I'm fascinated by the possibilities here. The differences and the similarities. Besides, if I let you go off alone, I know I'll never hear what happens. This is not going to be a time when you send me away while you go to see and do the cool things. I want to be there."

"Are you going to check in with us? For someone who got offended about the thought of me thinking you experienced in using motels, you've progressed to such a peace with yourself that you don't mind walking into one as part of what looks like a very kinky group." Mulder remembered the context of Brian's use of that statement but quickly swept it from his mind. It refused to stay away. Brian had been right, and he should have at least found out what Krycek had wanted in return. He'd lost track of his thoughts and self, like he always did in the presence of his former partner.

"There are worse things, though I think you should try to wake Brian up better before we go in. I don't want the establishment calling the cops on us for looking like a kinky group that intends to have its way with some guy we knocked out and dragged in from off the street."

"Scully, I didn't think you had it in you."

******************************************************

They ended up with a family-style room with two double beds, one for Scully and the other for him and Brian. Scully and Mulder came in together with Brian's two bags to sign in as a family with a child. Brian wandered in later pretending to be Mulder coming back in. Brian came into the room laughing and promised to go over his conversation with the desk clerk for them in the morning. He then passed out on the bed farthest from the window.

Mulder shook at him. "Brian." He noticed that Brian had a silver cross hanging from his neck, and it made him wonder if it was Brian's or a gift from Angel, who often hunted beings who feared crosses and silver.

"What? Let me die," he mumbled.

"You're going to bed wearing your boots, jacket, and gun?"

"Wouldn't be the first time I slept in them this week."

"In a bed."

Brian muttered a few choice curses, then said, "I don't think I could handle the laces on my Docs."

He sounded so plaintive Mulder smiled. "I'll take care of it. You're listed as my son after all. Try to help me though." Mulder didn't have to look at Scully to know that one of her eyebrows flew toward her hairline.

"Don't take advantage of me."

"Don't tempt me."

Brian managed to open and shrug his way free of his leather jacket but held onto the gun despite Mulder's hand reaching for it. "Where are you going to keep it?"he asked.

"On the bureau near the bed within reach. Give it over." Mulder accepted the gun as carefully as Brian handed it over. If Brian had given Mulder his firstborn child, he couldn't have been more nervous. Mulder put the gun in its promised place then started to untie the laces on Brian's steel-toed boots. "Why do you wear these things if they're so hard to take off?"

"They go with the black leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt. Besides, if you ever need to kick the shit out of anyone, this is the footwear to do it in." Extreme fatigue seemed to make Brian more open and truthful. Maybe a little too much.

"I hope you're not called upon to do that very often," Scully said suddenly.

Brian smiled dreamily. "You never know."

Once Mulder got the boots off, he tucked Brian into the bed and pulled the cover up to his neck as he would for a real son. Brian sighed, rolled over and instantly fell deeply asleep. It scared Mulder to see the... light totally extinguished from him. Prior to this, Brian had been able to return to consciousness at need. Not now.

"Scully, is he all right?"

Scully walked over for a look. "From what you told me, it seems that he was running on adrenaline alone. Either he finally hit bottom or he feels safe enough to let go of it. After a little rest he should be fine. Well, as fine as he can get. I see what you meant by a problem. After what happened to him and what he had to do, you'd think he'd have gone completely anti-violence."

"It's not unprecedented for a victim to become ultra-vigilant afterwards, to decide he would never be a victim again. Thanks for helping me out, Scully." It surprised him that she was willing to get involved here after her involvement with him had already done her so much damage.

"I can see how much Brian means to you, Mulder, and I know it can't be easy finding out you have another family only to discover that they're also being hunted down."

Mulder took off his own jacket and shoes and got into bed beside Brian. He tried not to think about how weird this was. "Good night, Scully."

Scully unsuccessfully fought the smirk off her face. "Good night, Mulder."

******************************************************

In the top two floors of an unremarkable building in D.C., the stench of blood and gunpowder drifted in the air. Silence had fallen after an hour of gunfire and screams. Bodies made a haphazard obstacle course through the halls. The beige carpeting had already absorbed much of the blood. A more dedicated observer would realize that the corpses marked a kind of trail from the roof to a certain office. That office held the last two survivors of the carnage.

"Do you really expect me to talk, Alice?" the man asked. If he hadn't been lying pinned on the floor by the woman in the black raincoat, you would think him to be an ordinary middle-aged businessman. Aside from bruises, his only injury was the large bloody hole in his right hand, the one he'd held a gun with.

She grinned. "You know I don't answer to my slave name. Only God knows what that man from child services was thinking. Ah, well, it was Ohio." She ran the muzzle of her gun down his cheekbone. "I don't expect the truth from you. If you decide against the whole macho defiance thing, you would only tell me some crap that would lead me into a trap. I'm not Fox Mulder to be put off by half-truths and the promise of more to come. I expect you to die."

"'Mr. Morley' is no longer with us."

"Amazing how many things a person could infer from such a vague statement. If he shows up, I have a whole corner of hell waiting for him. Bill Mulder is dead and Morley is either M.I.A. or K.I.A., so that leaves you as one of the last people I can get my hands on. You've really come up in the world. Only a year ago I would have had to kill far fewer people to reach you."

"What do you intend to do?"

"This whole clone extermination thing has really upset me. I'm just going to kill your people until the Powers That Be realize that they would be far better off leaving them alone. Sure, you folks see life as being cheap, but eventually you'll get tired of losing operatives."

"Do you really expect us to stop hunting Mulder?"

"Not Mulder, not with his love of flinging himself into trouble, but the others have done nothing. Besides, I'm going to have people watching out for them from now on."

"You don't have to kill me. I can help you. There's so much you don't know."

"We already discussed this. Morley tried to convince me that I was Samantha Mulder once, and I laughed my ass off. That's the problem with lying. Eventually nobody believes anything you say, whether you're telling the truth or not."

"Do you think he was telling the truth then?"

"How could anyone know for sure? Besides, the thought of being related to Bill Mulder turns my stomach." She glanced down at his hand. "You're losing a lot of blood."

"Damn you, you owe us!"

"Well then, I thank you for showing me how to be a better killer. It's certainly coming in handy now. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to tour the world, meet interesting people, kill them, and destabilize their governments while working for an alphabet soup of agencies, departments, units and bureaus. I thank you for trying to make me enforce your lies of normality and campaign of terror on the American people. I thank you for having my partner, Joseph Frank, a man worth ten of you, shot down like a rabid dog. I only regret that I can't thank all the other people responsible in person."

She brought the gun down on his head with a speed and strength that shouldn't have been possible. The sound of his skull crunching couldn't make up for the past. She left the way she came in, via the roof, and leapt to the next rooftop to make her exit from that building.

When she reached the street, she briefly pulled off her hood to let the rain touch her face. Rain hid any number of sins, and raincoats were so easy to clean. In the orange streetlights the blood running off passed for water.

As she swept the hood back up, she said, "Fancy meeting you here, Alexei. How deep are you into this?"

"As deep as ever," Krycek said. "I haven't seen you since St. Petersburg."

She smiled. "I can't say the same. You're looking better now. You've adjusted your balance. Good for you."

His face twisted. "Life goes on no matter how many arms I have. You shouldn't pull your hair back from your face like that. It makes you look too severe."

"You're one to talk about stupid hairstyles."

"Do you know all you need to about this whole clone thing?"

"I know what I need to and probably more than you realize. Are you angling for a deal?"

"I may have a few tidbits that would surprise you, as well as a few other things that might catch your interest. Say, about the Agency, Robert Sanders, the Sanders luck, Special Agent Lansdale Wilford, and Eric Vandenburg."

"I'm disappointed in myself that someone noticed I was looking in on those things."

"Don't feel bad. You're as discreet as ever. I only saw you because I was also doing some research. I found it interesting that Chance Harper, despite his unusual abilities, couldn't make any headway on his family's disappearance. It suggested that someone is somehow blocking his abilities. I found that very interesting. I would imagine that you're involved because Harper hired you."

"What do you expect me to barter in return, Alex?"

"I have a number of people trying to kill me, and some of them are also your enemies. I would appreciate your lethal touch coming between them and me on occasion."

"Done."

"Angel, I realized recently that you could have warned Mulder about me while I was his partner. Why didn't you?"

"I have a life of my own. I could make a career out of babysitting Fox Mulder. He can and should watch his own ass. Nice as that ass is, I have better things to do with my time. Are you hungry?"

"Am I ever not?"

"Where do you put it all? I know, `you can't tell me that.'"

"The spook's answer."

"And people wonder why I left government work. We'll grab a bite, and you'll tell me everything you think I don't know."

"How about some stories? I heard you're a Cold War veteran, and I've talked to some closet Communists who sometimes mention a woman who could be you."

"Alexei..."

"I know, you can't tell me that."

******************************************************

Mulder woke with a smile but also with a vague sense of alarm. Instead of the usual nightmares and insomnia, he'd had a strange dream about being at an awards show. The presenter announced the nominees for "Best Actor in a Television Drama" and then the winner. When the man called his name, all the celebrities, people involved with movies and television, around him applauded or hugged Mulder then sent him up to get his award. Scully applauded but looked distant. The music swelled with some very odd tune. The adulation from everyone else as he stood at the podium holding his award and giving the usual boring speech had surprised and pleased him.

Now he woke in a strange bed in a fading patch of warmth feeling like someone was missing, even though he hadn't woken up with someone for a long time, a pathetically long time. Then he remembered Brian and panicked before he realized that something under his hand made a rustling sound every time he moved. Mulder blinked, trying to clear his morning eyes, at the note before he could read:

"9:45 a.m. Dana and I went out for breakfast at the Sage Diner. I didn't want to wake you since you looked so peaceful, but you are welcome to join us, of course.

Do you still respect me after last night?

Love?  
Brian"

Mulder scrutinized the note Brian had written only--Mulder looked at his watch--fifteen minutes ago. The handwriting didn't resemble his own much, but that could be from their different interests. As a writer, Brian kept his script neat and readable. A number of people had told Mulder that his handwriting suggested that he would be a good doctor.

A more immediate thought interrupted. Dana?

******************************************************

"I'm sorry, Dana, but I just don't believe in genetic destiny. Why does it have to be nature versus nurture, either/or? It's both, but I give more credit to nurture personally."

Dana Scully sat back in her booth seat and reflected on her odd morning. Waking up to see her partner tangled up in bed with... her partner, both of them, against all previous experience, sleeping well and calmly. Then Brian Kessler had woken up, as if sensing her amused scrutiny, and had to untangle himself from Mulder without waking Mulder up. Scully watched closely through the five minutes it took and appreciated his dexterity in a purely professional, scientific manner of course.

While he showered and got dressed, Scully decided how she would deal with him. At least his facial scar helped her from seeing Mulder every second she looked at him, but her main problem was with him as the author of _The Road to Hell: A Ride with a Spree Killer_. Mulder had leant her the book and demanded she read it. She devoured it in one night against her will, unable to escape its grip, then put it down with the hope that she could forget it.

She couldn't decide what aspect of it disturbed her the most, although Mulder's psychologist's notes in the margins didn't help. For example, when Grayce tried to force Brian to kill a cop the way a mother bird forces its chick to fly for the first time, Mulder had a note asking, "Did Grayce go through a similar initiation or did he start killing on his own?"

As for the things Kessler wrote, she had a cornucopia of choices. Was it the thought of the spree killer trying to train Brian to be a killer out of some sense of friendship? The way Kessler accurately depicted his own personality changing through the course of events, as if he sent his mind back in time to record it all? The laundry list of horrors Brian and his girlfriend endured at the killer's hands? The almost homoerotic tone to the scene when Brian is finally forced to kill Early to save himself and his girlfriend with Early smiling and urging him on? The feeling the book gives you that in many ways Brian died, killing himself along with his tormentor? The fact that even before last night she had read Kessler's first-person account hearing Mulder's voice?

No, actually she knew what part of the book disturbed her the most: the conclusion: "I know these books usually have a lesson or moral at the end. Here is mine. The boogie man does exist but not under the bed or in the closet. He is inside all of us, and sometimes he comes out for a visit."

Before she could decide, he walked back into the room and charmed the hell out of her the same way Mulder did when he was having a good day or wanted something. From the very first time she met Mulder she had been aware that her partner was a handsome man, but he was her partner, most emphatically off limits and a little dangerous and loony to boot. Over time a bond had been forced between them, and she sometimes resented it. Working with him in their shared reality of aliens and bizarre happenings that no one else would believe had left her isolated. They had seen one another at their worst: bitchy, afraid, slimed, fatally sick, half-dead, insane, old. Mulder was her partner, her brother, her antagonist, her protector, the person who exposed her to danger and then tried to save her from it. A wanted and unwanted authority figure, maybe even a father figure of sorts. If they had been married they couldn't have seen more of each other.

Scully found herself responding to Brian, who most emphatically was not her partner, in a very physical way. He seemed to glow with happiness and health this morning, making it difficult to credit the things Mulder had said of him last night, but she sternly told herself to remember the book. Maybe he was bipolar, as she suspected Mulder to be. As she accepted his invitation to breakfast, she told herself she would watch him with a clinical detachment.

She blamed Mulder for her intense awareness of Brian as a physical presence. In the almost five years she'd known him, she had never seen her partner touch another human being so often. Well, except for Krycek, but Mulder touched Krycek in an entirely different way.

Over coffee she and Brian started to talk, and she saw the mind behind the familiar face. The intelligence and intuition he showed had made her start the whole nature versus nurture conversation. "You have to admit that you and Mulder have a lot of things in common," she said.

"There may be some similarities on a basic level, but our environments have shaped us into different people. In some ways it's a disservice to have me representing the clones. I mean, the D.E.A. agent is a crossdresser who is sometimes called `Denise.'" He laughed at the look on her face. "That's one urge I never had. There's an architect, a junkie surgeon, and a hustler among others."

"A hustler?"

"Another thing I never had the urge to try. The surgeon, Sands, had a pretty good life but still felt the need to use drugs. One day he went in so high he lost a patient. With my distrust of drugs and finely developed senses of guilt and responsibility, I can't understand his behavior."

"None of this seems to bother you much."

"None of what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the threats to your life, the fact that employees of our government is involved, the thought of these copies of you existing?"

"Well, Dana, I just had a good night's sleep, I'm enjoying the company and a damn fine cup of coffee, I found out that more things exist in heaven and earth, and I'm still alive despite the best efforts of a lot of people. I feel like I'm ahead." He studied her face for a moment, then said, "If it's too strange for you having this face and voice using your first name, I can start calling you `Scully' like Mulder does."

"Don't you dare. I like being called `Dana.'" When he smiled suddenly, her heart clenched. Down, girl. "Doesn't this clone thing bother you?"

"It explains things that previously had no other explanation than that a bad experience I had years ago had left me insane and paranoid. Just because most people don't accept something as possible doesn't make it impossible. If I let myself be ruled by the possible, I never would have gotten out of the truck and faced Early. I refused to give up, so I made the impossible possible.

"Life isn't neat and logical, and people aren't either. You can do your best and then life will put a jonesing spree killer in your car. Or your fiancée can suddenly commit suicide, leaving you to find her body floating in her own blood in the bathtub and find out that she had been involved in some weird, masochistic affair with a shoe salesman." He looked down suddenly, drawing her attention to his scarred wrists and her memory to all the things he had achieved while handcuffed. From the look of the scars, he was lucky he didn't have nerve damage. "I hope Nicole isn't being too hard on Fleiss. I don't think I would be good for much either after finding my lover's body like that. She's a good person, but the fact that she's triumphed over her rotten life can make her contemptuous of other people's weakness."

"Nicole?"

"One of her names. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen called her Dark Angel."

"He never mentioned this woman to me before last night."

"She believes herself to be an abductee. As a pre-adolescent she was found wandering the streets in a flannel nightgown with no memory of her life before that moment. She has some sort of implants in her brain that, from their size and position, should have killed her years ago. That's not even getting into her foster care experience and all the other people who used and abused her."

In other words, this woman tripped every button Mulder had. From the way Brian spoke of her, she guessed this Dark Angel to have a similar power over him.

"Hey, is this a closed party or can anyone join?" Mulder said suddenly as he sat next to Scully.

The waitress returned with Scully's omelet and a Brian's breakfast, which Mulder couldn't identify under all the sugar. "If you would like more powdered sugar for your French toast, please tell me," she said.

"No, this is great. Exactly what I wanted. Thank you," Brian said with a wide smile that seemed to stun the waitress. He quickly dug into his meal with a mighty appetite.

"Could I have a coffee?" Mulder asked to break her out of her trance. Seeing him only made her stare harder.

"Just a coffee? No wonder you're so cranky. Mulder, breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"Is there a breakfast under all that sugar?"

"There's no better way to start the day than with a caffeine and sugar rush."

"I'll have a buttered bagel."

"Thank you," the waitress said and left, although she continued staring at them all the way to the kitchen.

"Brian, did you pick this table?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, we had our pick. Why?"

"Do you realize that you're sitting with your back to two walls and looking at the door?"

"Of course, that was the point. You're learning, Mulder."

******************************************************

Brian used Angel's computer to leave a message for her at the Guestbook on her website then snuck out while Mulder and Scully checked out. "So, what do we do, just drive around?" Mulder asked.

"I don't know. I'm worried about wandering around in public. You didn't see all the people they sent after me in California," Brian said.

"Then we drive," Scully said.

They took a scenic drive on Route 50 out of Middleburg, then eventually picked up Route 66. After 20 minutes on the highway, Brian said, "Have you noticed that red Buick? It's been following us for the last hour."

"I'm taking the off ramp," Scully said. The Buick followed and sped up.

"They're going to ram us," Brian said with a calm Mulder couldn't understand. Mulder looked into the back seat and caught a brief flash of something cross Brian's face before all expression ceased. Scully hit the accelerator. Brian continued, "If they have any brains they'll have someone ahead to block us off. Here they come and from three different directions. I'm flattered by the attention. They must be using cell phones to coordinate this." Brian had a gun in his hands and a smile on his face in moments. He seemed to almost crackle with a kind of energy.

Scully hit the brake and brought the car to a halt to avoid hitting the cars boxing them in. "What now?" She too took out a gun.

"I see twelve operatives. I say we start picking them off now."

"We can't just start firing. We're FB--"

Gunfire broke out suddenly from nowhere, and Brian pulled Mulder and Scully down to the floor. "Stay down!"

"Are these friends of yours?"

"I hope so. Either help has arrived, or another faction is getting involved." Brian said. The driver's side window exploded, spraying the top of Scully's head with glass shards. "I really hope they're friends."

Everything went abruptly silent, then another rain of noise started. then silence fell again and lasted for five tense minutes, Angel shouted, "Brian, I'm coming over to drive your car out of harm's way. Don't look out your window!" Still Nicole Desjardin, she opened the driver's side door with a brusque "Move over, Agent Scully! Now! And stay down!" Scully ended up sitting on Mulder's lap and not looking happy about it. After adjusting the seat for her greater height Angel started to drive them away. Every time one of her passengers tried to rise and look out the windows she pushed the offender back down.

Finally she stopped and parked. "Okay, we're safe now. As you were."

"What the hell was that about?" Scully asked.

"I had to gather my allies quickly. Some of them would prefer not to be seen and maybe identified by FBI agents."

"You didn't want us to see the carnage," Brian said softly.

"Aside from the carnage, my shooters are probably looting the cars and bodies as we speak. You can't prosecute what you didn't witness." Before Scully could say another word, Angel said, "I saved your lives. Your precious rules and regulations were going to get you killed. I succeeded in getting a cease-fire on the others, but Mulder will be a target until he stops being Mulder, and having the two of you in one place proved to be too much of a temptation. The carnage here, as you called it, should underscore my intentions to the right people."

"How did you find me?" Brian asked. He looked a bit shaken.

"I was already in D.C. giving your pursuers reasons to leave you and the others alone. From there it was just a matter of tracking you down. They were using cell phones to coordinate their attack, and I took advantage. I called in some muscle to help out and followed the cars and phones."

"What started all this?" Mulder asked.

"It turns out, Mulder, that your father volunteered your genes for a little test run. The Project wanted to know if their hybrid clones would react based on their shared genetic heritage, which would make them predictable, or based on their different environments, which would make them unpredictable and dangerous. The Fox group, diffused throughout the continental United States and carefully watched all their lives, would give the Project some idea of how their plans would work out."

"If all of them were being tailed, why didn't someone intervene to save Brian from Early Grayce?"

"That road trip went all the over the place and managed to lose the agents at about the point where Grayce took over. They didn't catch up with Brian again until he and Carrie checked into the emergency room. Besides, as observers, they wouldn't get involved. They would just write an incredibly detailed report."

"Why did they start trying to kill their experiments now?"

"Mulder, your inquiry into Agent Scully's disappearance and what happened to her in that time made them nervous. Your investigation would inevitably lead you to the clone project. They decided to start destroying the evidence now. They figured it would break you if you discovered the run after they had killed all the clones."

"What now?"

Brian got out of the car. "Now I leave."

"Brian, what are you talking about?"

"Mulder, I'm a knife at your throat. If I stay I'll only be providing your enemies a tempting target to hurt or manipulate you with. I can't do that."

Mulder's face stayed very still, as if it would break if he tried to show emotion. "Where will you go?"

"I could go back home now that the termination order has been called off and I have guardian... angels looking after me. Angel said I could travel with her for a while if I wanted." Angel nodded. Brian continued, "She said she had a few cases she could work on while on the East Coast, like what one of her clients is claiming is a predatory werewolf in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. She knows I can handle werewolves because that's the first thing the Project sent after me. I'm inclined to go with Angel."

"Won't that be dangerous too?" Scully asked, totally ignoring his comment about werewolves.

"I don't mind danger to myself."

Mulder got out of the car. "Brian, I want to have a talk with you. Alone, Scully." Mulder led Brian to the back of the car. Mulder noted Brian's pallor and slightly dazed look. "Brian, you don't have to leave. I can find somebody to protect you."

"Mulder, if as many people didn't want you alive as want you dead, you wouldn't still be alive right now. Being involved in your world would provide too many temptations for me to indulge my... darker nature."

"You have no `darker nature,' Brian!"

"I enjoy killing as much as I hate it. You don't see that as wrong?"

"In certain circumstances, it is wrong, but wouldn't being with Angel be--"

"She would provide me with safer targets."

"Excuse me?"

"You're a federal agent. When you play by the rules you don't kill anyone unless you first give them fair warning and there's no other choice. Most of your worst enemies are government agents who don't play by those regulations. Angel isn't bound by any of that, and most of her opponents are things that should be killed. She only kills governmental conspiracy operatives when she hunts them herself. They usually can't find her. It's a big difference." Brian absently stroked his facial scar. "There is another thing."

"What would that be?"

He looked ashamed. "I feel alive when I'm with her. I love the danger. I'm addicted to that sense of power she radiates when she's On, that sense of aggression and freedom from morality. That was what I loved about Early and I never realized until I killed him."

"Brian--"

Lost in his own thoughts, Brian didn't seem to hear him. "I had been fascinated by him from the beginning. He was so different from anyone I'd ever known, and he repelled and entranced me all at once. Then one night he beat the shit out of some redneck who was bothering me, just reached out and beat him until the man couldn't get up anymore." Brian smirked, and his eyes darkened. He seemed to almost glow. "What I felt from then on wasn't a physical attraction. He was dirty and disgusting. I loved him for his violent soul. After that I wanted his approval and tried to impress him. Then I found out about his killing spree and everything changed.

"When I fought him to try to save Carrie, I didn't feel any pain; I was flying. It was the most primal, intimate thing I ever experienced. When people asked me later about killing him, I told them I did it to save Carrie and myself and for vengeance for us and Adele and all the other people he killed and tortured. I didn't talk about the personal betrayal I felt or the confusion or the feeling that I had to do it because he wanted me to. I shot him, and he taught me to do it. With him dead, we were safe. I did that. With my own hands I took a life and ended the killing spree. It was such a sense of power. Angel understands that. Her first kill was personal, for herself."

"Tell me about it." Although it scared Mulder to watch him, Mulder saw an opportunity. Brian wanted, maybe needed, to talk, and he seemed to know things about Dark Angel that she had never told Mulder.

"Her fifth foster father molested and physically abused her. She told all the people she was supposed to tell, but they preferred to believe that she slept around, at the age of approximately thirteen, and burned herself to get attention. Many people took her amnesia about her childhood as a sign of mental disturbance. It was more comfortable for them and their narrow minds to believe the word of a man who was considered a pillar of the community. They were going to let him adopt her." Brian's gaze burned, and he suddenly reminded Mulder of someone else. "Angel sees Agent Scully as having the same mindset as those people.

"Realizing that no one would save her, Angel took matters into her own hands. The next time he made a try for her she plunged a kitchen knife into his heart, breaking three of his ribs on the way in. She had been powerless her whole life, directed from place to place by the whims of others, but now she had changed everything and empowered herself. Morley offered her a place with his people almost immediately afterward.

"She sees no shame in killing. She does what she feels she must, with no regrets. You understand how attractive that is."

"What do you mean?"

"That man in the car outside your apartment building. He burns with it too, and I saw how you react to him."

Mulder's mind shook at the thought, but he forced himself to confront it. Krycek had the unholy fire Brian spoke of, and the sight of it always made Mulder want to grab him and--And what? The sight of Krycek always made him savage, made him behave in ways he wouldn't behave otherwise. Was he beating Krycek because that was the only socially acceptable way he could touch him?

Mulder remembered those minutes at the car when he had seen Brian and Krycek together and seen some odd resemblance in the looks in their eyes. Brian took on a certain dangerous gleam when he held a gun that Mulder had seen before. He realized that he had later stroked Brian's hair and face only partly out of fascination with his twin's physical resemblance to him. It was that fire and psychic resemblance that had compelled him.

Krycek had murdered his father and been involved in the murder of Scully's sister. He had betrayed Mulder so many times Mulder had stopped counting. Mulder didn't trust him and certainly didn't like him. That didn't seem to matter.

******************************************************

Scully sat in an uncomfortable silence next to the woman who called herself Dark Angel. Uncomfortable for her at least. The killer seemed completely at ease.

She turned to Scully and offered a business card. "A friend of mine will replace this window for you free. Tell him Angel said he should put the repair on her tab. He does excellent work."

Scully accepted the card carefully, as if it were tainted. "Thank you."

"Do you think I should cut my hair short for the next identity?"

"Excuse me?"

"My current identity, Nicole Desjardin, is known to too many of the wrong people now. They realize who I am or, rather, who I used to be. It's time to cover my tracks again. Besides Nicole doesn't fit as comfortably as she used to." She picked up the end of her red braid. "Oh, yeah, I'm going to lop most of this off. All I do is tie it back anyway."

Scully felt a certain outrage. "Do you realize that I neither like nor trust you?"

"Do you realize that I don't care? I don't like you either. That doesn't mean I can't be civil."

The open look Angel gave her took her by surprise. It reminded her so strongly of Mulder when he knew he was right but knew he could never convince everybody and, to some extent, accepted that fact.

******************************************************

Mulder knew he would brood on what he had realized later but set it aside to take care of more immediate matters. "Brian, I want you to stay."

"I wish I could. I like you, Mulder, despite all my protestations to the contrary. But I can't, and you know why."

Mulder knew, and hated it as he hated all the rotten things he couldn't fix. Before he thought about it long enough to decide not to, Mulder hugged Brian. "I'll miss you."

Brian grinned, but when he spoke, his voice sounded raw. "Same here. I always wanted a brother. I won't be traveling with Angel forever. If you ever take advantage of all that vacation time you've stored up, you should come visit me in California. I have a home right on the beach. You should write to Jake Fleiss too. Angel says he was jazzed by the idea of other versions of him wandering around. She says he has an incredible apartment that I should try to finagle my way into. If you come around, we could show up together sometime."

"Brian, you shouldn't beat up on yourself so much."

"Doctor, heal thyself."

Mulder smiled. "About Angel--"

"Kinsman, Ohio in November 1974."

"What?"

"That's where and when she was found."

"I will miss you."

*****************************************************

A month later, Mulder was returning to his apartment after a particularly hard case. Once in a while the words "I almost killed Scully" rattled through his mind. He couldn't think very far beyond that. Earlier, he had been enraged that Skinner and especially Scully wouldn't trust his judgment. Now he knew they were right not to.

Skinner had almost been solicitous at the end of their wrap-up meeting. He didn't deserve it. Scully seemed to want to pretend that nothing had happened. Mulder wished he could do the same. It didn't matter that he had been Pushed into it. He had turned his gun on his partner.

The last time he had been Pushed into almost killing Scully at least Modell had controlled his movements, using Mulder's body as the murder weapon. It made Mulder a little less guilty. Then he had tried to kill Scully after that experimental treatment he underwent to try to stimulate his memory. That time he could blame it on the drugs and seizures. This time his mind had only been muddled into illusion; his body had remained his own. Shooting Scully would have been entirely his own decision. It didn't matter that he hadn't thought she was Scully. Her blood would be on his hands.

He remembered that night when he had been told that his whole mission had been a lie that the Consortium was killing Scully for. Remembered the weight of his gun in his hand as he thought about ending the nightmares forever with a head shot because he remembered the stories of doctors once drilling holes into peoples' heads to let the demons out. The smaller holes from his "therapy" hadn't worked but maybe size really did matter. Sometimes he thought it would be a blessing if his speeding thoughts just stopped.

Maybe fewer people would get hurt. Scully would be safe and wouldn't have to deal with things she didn't want to believe anymore.

The discovery of the DoD's surveillance of his apartment had prevented Mulder from coming to a decision, but sometimes at night, alone, he still thought about it.

He unlocked the door to an apartment that hadn't been rifled through in his absence. He should be thankful for small favors but couldn't manage it. He carefully locked the door behind him then went through his mail. Amidst the grand assortment of bills he found a book club envelope promising him bestsellers at affordable prices. Before he threw it in the trash he saw the crumpled paper ball logo on it.

When he opened it and took out the letter some photos fell to the floor. He picked them up. In the first one Brian and some Gothic young woman sat under white fluorescent lights at an old-fashioned diner booth. She had loosely curled blue-black hair that ended below her jaw and fell slightly into her face. Deep black cats-eye eyeliner accentuated her eyes, and a faded smear of dark lipstick still marked her lips. They looked as if they shared a private joke. Mulder realized that the woman was Dark Angel. The inscription, written in Brian Kessler's neat but eccentric hand, on the back of the picture read: "Brian and Serafine at the All-Nighter."

In the next they sat on a crumbling set of outdoor steps. "Serafine" wore full Gothic makeup, worn black jeans, Doc Martens, and a battered and faded black leather jacket that had a nametag with the name "Eldritch" on it. It looked like it had silvery duct tape covering its tears and a duct tape "X" covering what seemed to be a bullet hole in the left sleeve. Brian wore all black except for the small white gauze pad affixed to his forehead. Another head injury. They grinned genuinely and looked happy yet somehow dangerous. That one read: "Brian and Serafine on St. Mark's Place." It gave Mulder an odd feeling seeing the pictures, seeing what looked like himself having a good time at places he'd never been.

The last picture featured the corpse of what could only be, even with the chest and part of the head blown off, a werewolf. Too bad no one trusted photographs as evidence any more.

Mulder devoured the letter from Brian. Brian spoke of the other world that existed when most people slept, of truck stops and all- night diners. Serafine had taken him to an Eat `N' Park in Pittsburgh that had been full even at 3 a.m. Sunday morning. One night they went to a diner on Route 22 at 2 a.m. that had been empty except for them and the staff. They played Charades with the employees until the 6 a.m. crew came on. He said that hearing another joke from her about Punxsutawney Pete would drive him to homicide. They went to New York City, and Serafine sat in onstage with an industrial band she knew at Continental in the Village. She was a killer guitarist. She was Serafine Fitzwalter and looked five years younger. He enjoyed traveling with her. She scorned highways in favor of riding through small towns. He had learned that every road led somewhere and that in many ways it was all one road, and if Mulder thought that was corny fortune cookie philosophy he could go screw himself. They would be flying back to the West Coast soon. Just a normal couple on vacation.

Brian didn't speak of the other things that Mulder knew had to be going on, the hunt and the kill, the reason why Brian wore a bandage in the New York picture, the story behind the werewolf picture. Mulder guessed they were probably wearing guns under their coats in both pictures.

Mulder found a little hope in the closing. Brian wrote: "I know what you're thinking. You have some image of Serafine and me in an outtake from _Natural Born Killers_. It's not like that. I know this won't last forever. I can't stay in the now like she can; I can't continue to drift at her side wherever she's going. Someday I'll leave and see who I am without her, think it through.

"For now I'm happy. There are things I can help and things I can't do anything about. I'm learning the difference between the two. I've come to a sort of peace with myself. You should try it, Mulder. You might like it.

I miss you and love you,  
Brian"

### End


End file.
